KR20020017622A - Community service system in internet environment and method thereof - Google Patents

Abstract

PURPOSE: A system and a method of a connector community service in Internet environment are provided to let users efficiently obtain information by exchanging information via a temporal community without a step for member registration. CONSTITUTION: The system comprises a server computer(100) and user PCs(3,4,5) connected to the server computer via Internet(2). The server computer and the user computers have respective IP(Internet Protocol) addresses. The server computer temporarily stores the information about the connectors to respective web pages. The information about the connectors in the web page is provided to the other connectors in connection with the corresponding web page. A user invites a part or all of the users in a list to a chatting room or transmits messages to the users. Message windows are displayed on the user computers when the users receiving invitation or message move to another web page.

Description

Visitor community service system in internet environment and its providing method {COMMUNITY SERVICE SYSTEM IN INTERNET ENVIRONMENT AND METHOD THEREOF}

BACKGROUND OF THE INVENTION 1. Field of the Invention The present invention relates to a computer system operating in an Internet environment. More particularly, the present invention relates to a system and a method for exchanging information by forming a temporary community between users accessing the same webpage when visiting a website on the Internet.

In the Internet environment, a method of finding desired information from information provided by a web site is mainly using a search engine or a direct link. The user must determine the search conditions to get the desired information and visit numerous websites to check the contents.

Many conventional websites provide community services for information exchange between users, but this service can be provided only by members registered in the community. FIG. 1 is a diagram illustrating a system in which a conventional method for providing a member-only community service can be implemented. The server computer 1 corresponding to the server side and the user computer corresponding to the client side, for example, a personal computer (PC). (3, 4, 5), and these computers are connected via the Internet (2).

The user computers 3, 4, and 5 have a conventional display device and input device which the user uses to access the web server 40, and the server computer 1 includes the main controller 10 and the network module 20. ), A network interface 30, a web server 40, a member-only community server 50, and a member DB 60.

The main controller 10 controls the interface with the network module 20.

The network module 20 processes the packets transmitted over the network.

The network interface 30 performs conversion between analog signals in the network and digital signals in the system.

The web server 40 is, for example, a web server used to provide a user with a web page written in HTML.

When the user requests to join the member-only community, the member-only community server 50 receives member information such as a member ID and contact information from the member requester, stores the member information in the member DB 60, and registers the member as a member in the member-only community. When the user requests a member-only community service, the web server 40 requests authentication of the user from the member-only community server 50 before providing the web page to the user. The member-only community server 50 receives member information such as a member ID for member verification from the user through the web server 40, and determines whether the member is a registered member by referring to the member information stored in the member DB 60. If it is determined that the web page is provided.

The user computers 3, 4, and 5 provide a screen to the display device according to the information received from the server computer 1 via the Internet 2, and the user 2 inputs the requirements of the user input via the input device to the Internet 2. Transfer to the server computer 1.

In the conventional community service, after inputting predetermined member information and registering as a community member, it is possible to exchange information with other members registered in the community. Therefore, the user who wants to participate in a specific community during the information retrieval is forced to join the membership, so those who are unwilling to register can not participate in the community.

In addition, in the past, when a community about a field of interest is currently not formed, it is difficult to obtain information about other users with similar interests, and thus, it is difficult to interact with other users and obtain information. You spend a lot of time reading and verifying hundreds of thousands of websites by yourself.

The main purpose of the present invention is to omit the complicated member registration process and form a temporary community on a web page basis with the user's IP address as the basic information so that information can be exchanged among users so that the desired information can be obtained more efficiently. It is to provide a system and method.

Another object of the present invention is to provide a system and method for providing a list of users accessing the same webpage to indicate the presence of other users with similar interests and to enable user interaction.

According to an aspect of the present invention, a server computer connected to a plurality of user computers and the Internet, comprising: a database for storing user information for each of the plurality of users, and a web page requested from each of the plurality of users temporarily A first process of updating the database each time the plurality of users requests a web page and extracting a list of users accessing each of the requested web pages from user information stored in the database. Means, and second processing means for receiving the extracted user list and adding it to a predetermined location of each of the temporarily stored corresponding web pages and providing the same to the user.

According to another aspect of the present invention, a method for providing a list of users accessing a specific web page from a plurality of user computers and a server computer connected through the Internet, the web page is requested from each of the plurality of users and A first step of temporarily storing a page, a second step of storing user information for each of the plurality of users, and a list of users accessing each of the requested web pages from the information stored in the second step And a fourth step of adding a list of the users corresponding to a predetermined location of each of the temporarily stored web pages and providing the list to the corresponding user.

1 is a diagram illustrating a system in which a conventional method for providing a member-only community service can be implemented.

2 is a diagram illustrating a system in which a method for providing a visitor community service according to the present invention can be implemented.

3 is a diagram showing the form of data stored in the visitor DB.

4 is a flowchart illustrating a community service providing process according to the present invention.

5 is a diagram showing an example of a screen for providing a visitor list according to the present invention;

6 is a diagram illustrating an example of a screen on which an invitation is received according to the present invention;

<Explanation of symbols for the main parts of the drawings>

1, 100: server computer

2: internet

3, 4, 5: your computer

40, 70: web server

80: community server

90: accessor DB

According to the present invention, a visitor who visits an arbitrary web page is configured as a temporary community, so that the visitors can exchange information.

FIG. 2 is a diagram illustrating a system in which the method for providing a visitor community service according to the present invention can be implemented. The server computer 100 corresponding to the server side and the user computer corresponding to the client side, for example, a personal computer (PC) Computers 3, 4 and 5, which are connected via the Internet 2. The user computers 3, 4, 5 and server computer 100 have respective Internet Protocol (IP) addresses as clients and servers.

In the present invention, the server computer 100 stores the visitor's information such as the visitor's IP address for each web page for a predetermined time. That is, the server computer 100 periodically checks the user who accesses the web page and manages the visitor information.

The server computer 100 provides the visitor information for each web page to the visitor accessing the page. That is, whenever a user requests access to a web page, the user allocates a certain space on the screen of the web page to display a list of other users who have viewed or viewed the web page. The user can invite some or all of the user list to the chat room or send a message. A user who receives an invitation or receives a message receives a message window such as an invitation letter or a message from the server computer 100 when the web page is moved. That is, the user's web browser requests data from the server computer 100, and in response, the server computer 100 transmits the data to the web browser and simultaneously displays a message window on the user computers 3, 4, and 5, respectively.

The user list may basically be a list of IDs determined for user IP addresses or member IDs of websites supported by the server computer 100 according to a predetermined ID determination rule.

Referring to the drawings of FIG. 2 in detail, user computers 3, 4, and 5 have a conventional display device and an input device that a user uses to connect to web server 70, and server computer 1 is a main control. The unit 10, a network module 20, a network interface 30, a member DB 60, a web server 70, a visitor community server 80, and a visitor DB 90 are included.

The user computers 3, 4, and 5 provide a screen to the display device according to the information received from the server computer 100 via the Internet 2, and send the user's requirements input to the input device to the server computer 100. Transmission via the Internet (2).

The main controller 10 controls the interface with the network module.

The network module 20 processes packets transmitted over the network.

The network interface 30 performs conversion of analog signals on the network and digital signals in the system.

The web server 70 is, for example, a web server used to provide a user with a web page written in Hypertext Markup Language (HTML), and may be any server that can serve standard HTML. The web server 70 receives a web page from an external server (not shown) at the request of a user and stores the web page in a temporary memory. The web server 70 extracts an IP address from a Transmission Control Protocol / Internet Protocol (TCP / IP) packet transmitted from the user. Alternatively, the visitor community server 80 may extract the user's IP address.

The visitor community server 80 determines the visitor ID to implement a temporary community based on the visitor's IP address for each web page. The community server 80 determines a visitor ID according to a predetermined ID determination rule for the visitor's IP address and stores it in a visitor database (DB) 90. The non-member accessor is temporarily assigned an ID according to the ID rules. The visitor community server 80 searches for the user's IP address from the visitor DB 90 when there is a user requesting access to a web page, and if the user connects to the visitor community server 80 for the first time, that is, the visitor DB If the user does not have the corresponding IP information at 90, a new ID is determined, and information such as the corresponding IP address, the requested web page, and the last access time is registered in the visitor DB 90. The visitor ID may be temporarily determined as the visitor ID using an anonymous method that determines, for example, visitor 1, visitor 2, ..., in the order of registering the user's IP address in the visitor DB 90. have.

In one embodiment of the present invention, a user may register as a member of a website providing a visitor community service, wherein a user logged in as a member of the website uses a member ID as a visitor ID.

On the other hand, if the visitor information is already registered in the visitor DB 90, the visitor community server 80 updates the access web page and the last access time.

The visitor DB 90 stores visitor information such as the user's IP address, ID, page being accessed, and last access time. Visitor information registered in the visitor DB 90 is deleted from the visitor DB 90 when the user has not accessed for a predetermined time.

The member DB 60 stores member information of users registered as members on the website.

In accordance with the present invention, in order to provide a user with a list of other users accessing the web page when the user requests the web page, the visitor community server 80 stores the user IP address, ID, and access stored in the visitor DB 90. Retrieves the ID of the user who is accessing the web page by searching the information on the current page. The visitor community server 80 generates a list of extracted IDs and transmits them to the web server 70.

The web server 70 adds a visitor ID list to the web page requested by the user and sends it to the corresponding user computers 3, 4 and 5, and the user computer 3, 4 and 5 sends the web page to which the visitor ID list is added. Provided by the screen of the display device.

Because of the connectionless nature of the HTTP protocol, the list of accessor IDs provided to each user is only updated when the page moves. That is, for example, if user A is viewing page a and another user B connects to page a, B is added to the list of connected users for page a, but the list of accessor IDs provided to user A is user B. Is not updated with the added list, and if user A requests to reconnect to the page, the updated list of accessors is provided.

In the present invention, if there is no reconnection to the accessed web page after a certain time, the visitor information of the user is deleted from the visitor DB 90. In this case, the user may read the web page for a predetermined time or more. In order to prevent such a case, in one embodiment of the present invention, in order to prevent the user information from being deleted, a refresh code is inserted into the web page to automatically access the server every predetermined time.

As described above, a user may view a webpage to which a visitor list is added and may invite some or all of the user list to a chat room or transmit a message. The invitation or message is transmitted to the server computer 100 and stored in the visitor DB 90 as the visitor information of the target user, and provided as a new window when the target user moves to a page to confirm the invitation or message.

3 is a diagram illustrating the form of data stored in the visitor DB 90. The data includes an ID, an IP address, a URL (Uniform Resource Locator) of a web page currently being accessed, an invitation, and a message of the user accessing the server computer 100.

4 is a flowchart illustrating a process of providing a visitor community service in the visitor community server 80.

In step S400, the web server 70 receives the user's website access request from the user computers 3, 4, and 5 and proceeds to step S401.

In step S401, the web server 70 reads the requested web page from the server (not shown), stores it in a temporary memory (not shown), and proceeds to step S402.

In step S402, the web server 70 extracts the user's IP address from the TCP / IP packet and transmits it to the visitor community server 80 and proceeds to step S403.

In step S403, the visitor community server 80 checks whether the user's IP address is registered in the visitor DB 90, and if so, proceeds to step S405. S404).

In step S404, the visitor community server 80 determines the user's ID and registers it with the user's IP address in the visitor DB 90 and proceeds to step S405.

In step S405, the visitor community server 80 stores the visitor information such as the URL of the request web page and the last access time in the visitor DB 90, and proceeds to step S406.

In step S406, the visitor community server 80 searches for the visitor information of the corresponding user in the visitor DB 90 and the ID of the user who has accessed the request web page for a predetermined time and proceeds to step S407.

In step S407, the visitor community server 80 checks whether there is an invitation or a message sent to the user, and if there is one, proceeds to step S408, and if not, proceeds to step S409.

In step S408, the visitor community server 80 delivers the invitation or message to the web server 70 and the web server 70 adds a new window for the invitation and / or message and proceeds to step 409. .

In step S409, the visitor community server 80 generates a visitor list including a user ID connected to the web page for a predetermined time, and then transfers it to the web server 70 and proceeds to step S410.

In step S410, the web server 70 adds a visitor list to a predetermined space of the web page and proceeds to step S411.

In step S411, the web server 70 transmits the final web page to the user computers 3, 4, and 5.

5 is a diagram illustrating a screen example for providing a list of accessors according to the present invention. For example, at the end of a given web page is the number of users currently connected 501 and the ID list 502, and invite 503 and send message 504 for each user.

6 is a diagram illustrating a screen example of receiving an invitation letter according to the present invention. A new window 601 shows a sentence 602 indicating that another user has invited the chat room. The user clicks Accept (603) or Reject (604) to accept or decline the invitation. Since chat rooms are well known in the art to which the present invention pertains, detailed descriptions thereof will be omitted.

While the present invention has been described and illustrated with respect to particular embodiments, those skilled in the art will recognize that many modifications are possible without departing from the spirit and scope of the appended claims.

According to the present invention, not only members but also non-member users can provide community services using only IP addresses as basic information so that users of the same interests can meet and efficiently obtain information of websites.

Specifically, the ID list of the users who are accessing the same web page is displayed to indicate the existence of other users having a common interest and to allow interaction between users.

Claims (10)

For a large number of user computers and server computers connected via the Internet, A database for storing user information for each of the plurality of users; Means for temporarily storing web pages requested from each of the plurality of users; First processing means for updating the database each time the plurality of users requests a web page, and extracting a list of users accessing each of the requested web pages from user information stored in the database; Second processing means for receiving the extracted user list and providing the extracted user list to a predetermined location of each of the temporarily stored corresponding web pages and providing the same to the corresponding user; Server computer comprising a. The apparatus of claim 1, further comprising third processing means for determining a user ID (ID) corresponding to an IP address of each of the plurality of users, wherein the user information includes an IP address of the user. And a Uniform Resource Locator (URL) of the requesting webpage. 3. The server computer of claim 2, wherein the list of users is a list of user IDs. The user of claim 3, wherein the first processing means further stores an ID of the invited user in the database when receiving an invitation for selecting a user selected from the user ID list as an invitation target of a chat room. And when a web page is requested, displaying the ID of the invited user to the invited target user. The method of claim 3, wherein when the first processing means receives a message targeting a user selected from a list of user IDs, the message is further stored in the database, and when the receiving target user requests a web page, A server computer for displaying a message to the recipient user. A method for providing a list of users who are accessing a specific web page from a plurality of user computers and a server computer connected through the Internet, Receiving a web page from each of the plurality of users and temporarily storing the web page; Storing user information for each of the plurality of users; A third step of extracting a list of users accessing each of the requested web pages from the information stored in the second step; A fourth step of adding the list of the users corresponding to the predetermined positions of the temporarily stored web pages and providing the list to the corresponding users; User list providing method comprising a. The method of claim 6, further comprising a fifth step of determining a user ID corresponding to an IP address of each of the plurality of users, wherein the user information includes an IP address of the user, an ID, and a URL of the requesting webpage. How to provide a list of users. 8. The method of claim 7, wherein the list of users is a list of user IDs. The method of claim 8, Storing an ID of the invited user upon receiving an invitation for selecting a user selected from the list of user IDs as an invitation of a chat room; And displaying the ID of the invited user to the invited target user when the invited target user requests a web page. The method of claim 8, Storing a message when receiving a message targeted for a user selected from the list of user IDs; And displaying the message to the receiving target user when the receiving target user requests a web page.